Today we will know the second part of the diary of a Rohingya school teacher and his genocide.
Futur's father did not have enough money to send his son to university. Studying in Rakhine State was very expensive - the cost of going to high school for one year was 1.8 million to 2 million kayats (about 1250 US dollars). For most families, it would be possible to send only one child to school, if all the other children were working together.
After finishing high school, Futu began to keep another journal, a small notebook in red. In it, he began documenting incidents of bribery, extortion, beatings, fines and arrests by border guards Nasakar who came to their village from a nearby outpost. Futur's father offered to lend him money to run a small shop, but Futur wanted to do something bigger.
A friend of Futu, who used to teach in the madrasa in the morning and in the mosque in the afternoon, suggested to Futu to open a small class to teach English and Burmese to the children during the day. As the friend said, there are many children who are interested in learning to read.
Together with the friend, Futu collected two dozen students. He goes to their home and tries to convince their parents that they should save money to buy textbooks. For the families who could not raise money, Futu approached the rich for donations. When those were not enough, he himself bought books for the students with money from his pocket.
To get to know the world better, Futu contracted with traveling businessmen to bring weekly magazines from Maungdaw. He loved history and literature. Listening to English songs, he was very enthusiastic about writing their lyrics. He started collecting books. He studied World War I, Winston Churchill and Bill Clinton. He would sing to his students and recite poems so that they could easily remember them. He translated the Burmese textbook into Rohingya for the benefit of the students. Like the history of his notebook, he explained everything from the very beginning.
Within a few months, Futur's students began to read and write. Within two years they began to pass the middle school exams. When Rohingya children started getting better marks than their Rakhine classmates, teachers at a nearby Rakhine primary school were surprised. They ask them in disbelief, "How did you learn to read?"
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| A Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh |
Until the 2010 election, the Rohingya had the right to vote. At that time, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) candidate affiliated with the army was organizing an election campaign in Dunse Para. The military junta at the time relaxed its grip on power after a series of anti-government protests led by Buddhist monks since 2007, led by the Saffron Revolution, aimed at political reform. But the party led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi
boycotted the election, and international observers condemned the election as "neutral."
But in Dunse Para, the USDP promised the Rohingya various rights in exchange for their votes. They proposed to give seven million kayats for local development. If this money was shared among the locals, it would not be possible for each family to buy more than a cup of tea. Futu therefore suggested that instead of distributing directly to the local people, they should establish a school with this money. Until then, Rohingya students who wanted to attend a registered primary school had to go to a nearby Rakhine village. And for middle school and high school, they had to go to a bigger village or town.
The head of the village, Fayez Ullah Futur, agreed with the proposal, but they had to gain momentum to convince the common villagers. For a few weeks, Futu went from house to house to meet the parents of the students, meeting with the villagers.
Futu noticed the difference between his community and the Taing-yin-tha community. They might say, "My son has a BA," or, "My son has a master's degree." But the people of the Futur community would say, "I have seven acres of land" or, "I have two cows and a goat." Futu wanted the Rohingya to learn to measure the value of their lives differently.
It was not possible to convince everyone. Many of them wanted to know, "If we send our children to Burmese schools, will they forget their own culture? Will they ignore the values we have taught them? Will they start drinking beer like Rakhine?"
Moreover, if one passes primary school, middle school, even high school, what is the benefit? They will not be able to go to college, get a well-paying government job, or join the police or the army. The children were needed in the village to work hard and to make footwork. Where the future is predetermined, what is the benefit of wasting money on bribes, books and exams?
Futu argued that if the Rohingya were educated, they would be able to end the rules. More people from their community will be able to compete to become members of parliament. If a dozen of them are elected as MPs, then even if the authorities kill one or two of them, the rest will remain! They will be able to re-plan how to throw light into their dark lives.
Futu, along with prominent people of the village, was finally able to convince everyone. He contacted the government and arranged for the school to be registered. In his diary, he repeatedly drafted a budget for the construction of the school. He realized that the amount of money they had been promised was not enough to build the school. A well-built school will cost at least ten times as much as a USPD grant.
Futu formed a committee to plan for cost reduction. They recruited 25 volunteers to save workers costs. They needed coconut trees for the poles on the walls, but it cost a lot of money to buy a coconut tree and carry it from the hill. Futu made a new plan. There were many coconut trees in many lands of the village which did not bear fruit for years. He identified the trees one by one and went to their owners and bought them cheaply. Within a week all the barren coconut trees in the village turned into school poles.
They started playing Hindi and English pop songs from the loudspeakers placed on the site in order to mobilize more volunteer workers during the construction work. When visitors gather in the festive atmosphere, they ask for help in the construction work.
The students carry water from the well, light a fire and make tea for the guest workers. Volunteer workers get to work after drinking tea. They build a fence around the school grounds to protect them from rainwater runoff so that children do not slip. They build tarpaulin walls to ensure fresh air flow in the classroom. They block the street view so that the children are not disturbed.
When their work was completed in 2010, the first government school in the history of Dunse Para had 260 students in four classrooms. Although easy to hear, setting up a village school from scratch was extremely difficult and a mountainous task. It was a huge undertaking to change the course of a deep river.
Read the next episode from here: Episode 3
All episodes: Episode 1 । Episode 2
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